Edinburgh Anarchists

Further to recent post. I really don’t want this to fall into Bell-Pottinger’s memory hole. The multi-million-profit oil trading business is getting away with “compensation” worth less than the cost of medications. Justice is too important to be left to lawyers.

The local contractor, the bottom end of the Trafigura poisoning-for-profit venture? He got 20 years jail. Probably deserved. But not as richly as the traders deserve it. Instead they get time to apply their “creative” techniques to molecular biochemistry:

It also denies that the waste – gasoline residues mixed with caustic washings – could have led to the serious illnesses the residents claim, which include skin burns, bleeding and breathing problems

This, folks, is why science is good. They’re putting forward a bold new theory, we now need to carry out a simple, controlled experiment to see whether this is actually the case:

1. Mix petrol and quicklime
2. Apply to skin
3. Observe effect

All we need are some volunteers to test the hypothesis. Perhaps Tim Bell, Peter Carter-Ruck and Claude Dauphin would oblige? After all there’s no proof…

Oil traders, seeking the most profitable way to turn around a cargo of sulphur-contaminated fuel realise that “Claude [Dauphin] owns a waste disposal company” and that they could get rid of their caustic wash slurry in a “creative” way. Disappointingly, the best they could come up with was to dump it in Ivory Coast and give it to a local contractor with “no experience, or facilities. [but] For a very low price his hired tanker-trucks took away the black slurry.”

That’s not creative. The Neapolitan mafia do this too; though to be fair they probably don’t make “7m!!” (James McNicol) on each cargo.

The result:

In the following weeks at least 95,000 people in the port city sought hospital treatment. Thousands of families were forced to leave their homes. Dao, 39, closed his business for a month. “I can still feel the effect after it rains,” he said late last year. “I have pain in my chest.”

In Vridi, an industrial area near the port, at least one tanker load was dumped into shallow sewerage canals inside the Cap Logistics factory, opposite a baby food manufacturer. The canals are exposed on several locations along the main street, where informal restaurants cater for the thousands of factory workers in the area.

Isabelle N’gbe, who heads the 4,500-strong Vridi Workers Toxic Waste Victims Association, said a street vendor, Kara Tounzon, 47, died soon after the dumping while thousands fell ill.

“The government advised workers within one kilometre of the dumping site to stay away but people had to come to work to get money,” said N’gbe.

Realising their mistake, the traders at Trafigura held their hands up, apologised and began to pay compensation to theit victims Trafigura hired the scrupulously ethical libel law firm of Carter-Ruck and the equally fragant PR agency Bell Pottinger (80s tories following DuranDuran on the comeback trail). In keeping with their high moral standing, Bell Pottinger said they were “appalled”.

…by a UN report into the incident. Cynical but still highly profitable traders have made a “no liability” compensation offer and there’s been no word of criminal proceedings into their fatal actions. Graham Sharp, Claude Dauphin, Lord Strathclyde, Eric de Turckheim are just 4 of them who aren’t worried about a knock on the door.

Meanwhile in Leeds, where binworkers are engaged in industrial action v similar to that in Edinburgh

West Yorkshire Police were continuing to question six people arrested in connection with an attack on the home of Leeds City Council leader Richard Brett, the man who has become the public face of opposition to the workers’ demands.

An attack? Disgraceful. What, like broken windows? Er, no.

Supporters of the Leeds refuse collection strike, dumped several bags of rubbish on the doorstep of council leader Richard Brett this morning.

I understand there were no mercaptans, oil products or hydrogen sulphide released from those bags…

These 2 stories illustrate so many of the points that anarchists know well: laws work for the rich; environmental burdens fall hardest on the poor; the profit motive and capitalist system are enemies of our health and our environment.

They also illustrate why we have to keep fighting for the twin goals of a world free of exploitation and environmental degradation. The law won’t do it for us and we can’t let these crimes be forgotten.